Revenge on Her
by Dairene
Summary: Based on Kino no Tabi Volume 6 Chapter 1 "Her Journey"


Revenge on Her

A woman in her thirties sat alone in her apartment sipping tea and flipping sadly through a book of photographs. The day before, she had gotten through some spring cleaning and she'd dug up a lot of old mementos.

Painful memories, wounds that never fully healed cracked again. Closing the photo album, she leaned back in her chair, teary-eyed.

"Tomas, can you tell me? Did- did I do the right thing?" She muttered quietly.

She sat there for quite a while in silence.

Then, as the afternoon light waned, there was a loud knocking sound at the front door, startling the woman.

"Oh, it must be Valentina! Strange, I thought she wouldn't be here until tomorrow. Trip must've been smoother than expected."

She scrambled to her feet and hastened to the door.

When she opened the door, she was stunned to find not her neighbor, but a stranger standing there. A solemn-looking young woman, wearing a coat- she had a figure that could easily be mistaken for a teenager, but looking carefully at her features, the older woman conjectured that this stranger might be in her late twenties.

"Miss, are you lost?"

"It's Emily… and no, it's not-" The strange woman stammered hesitantly, looking down. "Are you Miss *****?"

"Umm, yes?" The older woman raised an eyebrow at her name, unsure where this was going. "Were you looking for me?"

"Yes!" The young woman looked up and her eyes blazed with a look that the older woman found incredibly familiar.

A moment later she understood what it was: rage.

And it was a moment too late.

The girl named Emily shoved Miss ***** back, knocking the older woman flat on her back. Stepping inside, the girl drew a pistol-type persuader from her coat, while shutting and locking the front door behind her, careful to keep the persuader aimed at Miss *****.

"Wh- What do y-you w-want?" Miss ***** demanded, sitting up as she began to sweat profusely. "I don't have that much money."

"I don't want your money," The younger girl spat. "Remember a certain Mister West?"

The woman's eyes widened in shock. "But how- why- "

She didn't get to finish her sentence.

Bang! Emily fired, blasting a hole in the fallen woman's shoulder.

"AAH!" The woman cried in pain, her body bending forward.

Bang! Bang! A second bullet was fired, striking the woman's right thigh, followed by a third penetrating her left thigh.

"GAH! AAH!" Sounds of agony filled the air.

The younger woman moved around slowly, repositioning herself before firing twice more on her defenseless victim, one bullet to the right arm, one bullet to the left.

"GAAHH!" Her wounded arms no longer able to hold up her own weight, the injured bullet-riddled woman collapsed backward, laying face-up, her clothes soaked with her own blood. "Why- ? God, it hurts so bad," She moaned, trembling in agony. "Who are- ?"

"Well, to answer your first question…" Emily answered casually, persuader still trained on the woman before her. "It's to kill you. As to who I am… I am Mr. West's cousin- or niece, as I'm strictly a generation below him. Throughout my childhood, his parents would frequently visit mine, and we would play together. As I grew up, I found… that I loved him. He was always nice to me, took care of me, but in the end, he was never able to reciprocate… to treat my love seriously. To him, I was just family. But I was happy, so long as I got to spend time with him. I was there to comfort him when his parents passed.

When he was imprisoned after the accident that took your lover, I grieved. But he made me promise to dry my tears, not to cry for him anymore, but I couldn't help myself each time I saw him. So I vowed to go on a journey and see nearby countries, that I'd be back for him in ten years. He encouraged me to pursue this dream, assuring me he'd be safely waiting in prison.

So I traveled to nearby countries, I saw amazing sights, met all sorts of interesting people, even fought a couple battles. I couldn't bring my dear Ray with me like I'd once dreamed, but I always kept his picture close by my side. I wrote about all I'd seen, the people I'd met, in my diary, so I could tell him all about it… but now I can't do that, can I?"

Emily stopped pacing to bend down next to the bleeding, moaning woman on the floor. "A short while ago, I met a young traveler in another country, one riding a motorrad. You don't see many lone travelers her age, and a girl no less, so I was intrigued, and felt a certain… kinship, if you will. We traded a couple stories, and then I asked her if she'd by any chance being to my homeland. And not only had she just left there, she told me a very interesting tale… want to guess what it was?"

The woman lying on the floor shook her head slightly, groaning.

"Well, you probably know already. I made sure to question every detail the traveler could remember, and though it was three years early, I had no choice but to return to my hometown and confirm if it was true- I prayed and prayed it wasn't what I thought it was. But when, at last, I reached our walls, I made inquiries at the jail and the emigration office, and they all told of how he'd left with you, but how you'd later returned alone. He even left a letter at the immigration office apologizing for not being there, but hoping we might cross paths while traveling. Not that matters anymore. I even found the grave you dumped him in, after murdering him in such a treacherous, sadistic, undignified manner, depriving him even of his homeland- "

"He killed-" Miss ***** gasped slowly, terror and agony etched on her face, but was cut off immediately.

"It was an accident!" Emily practically screamed. "You had no right to do that to Ray!" She shot Miss ***** in the elbow, eliciting a weak scream from the supine woman. "He- he even tried to help you!"

Taking deep breaths, Emily calmed herself. "But what you did was no accident, so I'm not going to let this burden my conscience. I'm the only person left who remembers Ray for who he was, the only one who can avenge him. That's why I have to kill you with my own hands."

Tears leaked down Miss ***** 's face. "No..." She muttered. "No… please… I don't… I don't want… to die..." She babbled in primal fear.

"I'm sure Ray thought that way in his last moments too," Emily replied savagely. "He was a soft-hearted man, my Ray. A bit of a boy at heart. Do you have any last words, bitch?"

"I'm- really- sorry..." Miss ***** mumbed, her eyes beginning to lose focus and glaze over as her blood loss worsened. "Tomas? Tomas, please…"

"That's your lover, isn't it?" Emily let out a short, bitter laugh akin to a bark. "I guess I shan't keep him waiting, huh? Time for your sweet reunion."

She fired one last shot, right through Miss ***** 's head. The body twitched slightly from the impact, and then one final stain- not of blood- emerged as the newly-dead corpse's bladder lost continence.

Then the young woman dropped her composure, keeled forward, retching slightly. "I- I did i-it Ray- I- a-avenged you. Mind- this, by far isn't the first time I've k-killed, but m-man, this one was brutal."

Before she knew it, tears trickled down from her eyes. "I'm so- sorry, Ray. I- couldn't keep- my p-promise. I still- ended up- crying for you." For the first time in nearly seven years, Emily cried and cried. She cried until she fell asleep, leaning against a wall, just meters from where Miss ***** 's body lay, growing colder by the minute.

Emily woke at the crack of dawn, and glanced one last time at Miss ***** 's riddled corpse. It was beginning to smell- the woman had lost control of her bowels when she died, but it had taken some time to fully permeate.

Shaking her head, Emily then hurriedly left the house, persuader tucked in her coat, heading straight for the inn where she'd stashed her stuff. It would likely only be a matter of time before someone discovered the body, so Emily did not intend to dawdle.

It was nearly noon when Miss ***** 's neighbor, Valentina, came to deliver fruit from her parents' farm in the country. When no one responded to her knocking, Valentina tried the door and found it was unlocked. Valentina went inside, intending to leave a surprise for her neighbor.

Instead, she found herself screaming and fleeing in terror, horrified to discover Miss ***** 's cold, dead, stinky body stretched out in the hall just beyond the atrium, caked in dried blood. Of course, it wasn't long before the police arrived on the scene.

By this time, Emily had already completed her emigration procedures, paid her last respects to Ray's grave, and was well on her way leaving the country.


End file.
